The present invention relates to prosthetic attachments, and more particularly to a prosthetic attachment adapted to assist upper limb amputees in playing a stringed instrument such as a guitar, or the like.
As used herein, the term "amputee" includes congenital and other deformities of an upper limb.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,975 issued Nov. 23, 1976 relates to a prosthetic attachment for disabled persons, such as amputees, in order to permit them to pick the strings of a guitar, or the like. This patent discloses a pick embedded in a hardened mass that is strapped to the forearm of the disabled individual.
Stringed instruments, such as guitars, banjos and mandolins, require depression of the springs against frets along the neck of the instrument in order to change the pitch of the strings, individually or as a group. Such instruments usually have the individual strings tuned to provide a musical chord when a pick, or the like, is moved across all of the strings.
Upper limb amputees are usually unable to properly depress the strings of a musical instrument to contact properly adjacent frets. Forearm and upper arm stumps usually have a substantially greater width than the separation between frets. Also, since upper limbs usually contain significantly more muscle and/or fatty tissue, and even if the strings can be depressed, proper notes or chords are not usually produced because of contact with one or more strings above the barred fret by the stump.